Unfaithfully Yours by Preston Sturges

I've just been watching the Criterion Collection edition of Unfaithfully Yours and it's all just so delightful. I watched the introduction with Terry Jones, and am so glad I did. I think it helped me to enjoy the film. And, the fact that Jones' cat walks in front of him just as he is finishing up the interview, as if to say, "I want my part of this conversation!" sets just the right tone. Jones enthusiastically points out that there's lot of language, beautifully delivered, and that in general, the pace is snappy. There's also an interview with Sturges' widow, Sandy Sturges, who has lots to say about the story of how the picture got made and the inspiration for the screenplay. It's all very lovely.

 As Jones points out, some of the two slapstick sequences in the film don't necessarily fully work. I hardly noticed the first one; I had a "respectful" attitude about the second. In Jones' comments, he mentions that "slapstick" was not a speciality of Harrison's; when I watched it the second time, I found myself admiring because now I saw it as something hard. 

What makes this film engrossing is the idea: a jealous man who cannot accept that his beautiful wife loves him faithfully, and all the complications that come with it - and incongruities. The tailor he meets who's a bit of a philosopher; the private detective he meets who essentially says, "I am your biggest fan" and means it; the broken English and brilliant metaphor of Lionel Stander's character, who I think refers to the members of the orchestra as "meatheads." I loved Rex Harrison in Major Barbara and I love him here. There's something masterful in the way that he delivers dialogue; something wicked in that glint in his eye. 

About the orchestra: I read that Sturges was not a fan of classical music. This surprised me a little bit because I so loved the way he filmed the orchestra. I don't quite know how to express it. I guess I'd say he makes the orchestra seem like a football team or an assembly line. They're stripped of their glamour, wearing street dress, but their synchronization seems very impressive, their intensity workmanlike rather than exalted. Of course, it reminded me of Peter Schikele's Beethoven's Fifth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzXoVo16pTg). There's a little bit of comic business about the cymbals that I love: it's simple, it's modest but it seems to work.

I knew nothing about Linda Darnell before seeing this film and still know very little but here she was wonderful, really inspired.